A chronicle of the horrific final year of the Pacific war. By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan's defeat was inevitable, but how the victory would be achieved remained to be seen. Hastings gives us incisive portraits of the key figures--MacArthur, Nimitz, Mountbatten, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. But he is equally adept in his portrayals of the ordinary soldiers and sailors--American, British, Russian, Chinese,...

Recounts the momentous events that occurred in Europe between D-Day in 1944 and V-E Day in 1945.

Churchill got many little things wrong, but he was right, crucially so, on major points of Allied strategy. When the Americans joined the war, they were hot to invade France. Churchill dissuaded Roosevelt from mounting what, in 1942 or 1943, would have been a suicide mission, and redirected Allied attention to North Africa and Italy. The Mediterranean campaign bore mixed results, but Churchill's instincts were correct. There is a poignant ambiguity...